The ripping up of Payner's room was not as thorough a job as that by which the unhappy Moons had suffered. The twins were too much excited, and their eagerness to finish was too great to permit much elaboration. They dragged the chief articles of furniture around the desk; piled the bedding on the heap, and wet it down with a dash of water; smashed the lamp-shade in trying to make it sit securely on top, and filled the fireplace with pictures from the wall. To give distinction to the effect, the precious beetles were taken from their case, and pinned up over the fireplace in a hasty attempt to form the letters of the Latin _Salve_. When Payner returned from the lecture, half an hour later, he ran into the outworks of the heap, and sent the ruins of his shade crashing to the floor. The twins listened through the crack of their door, and trembled with excitement and eagerness, lashed by guilty consciences and yet defiant. But this one crash was all they heard. The door did not reopen, and no other sound came from within to indicate the feelings of their victim. Next morning when they went out to breakfast, they noticed that the card in the indicator at the entrance to the dormitory on which had been written opposite No. 7, _D. and D. Peck_, now bore the legend _The D--D Pecks_. It was Payner's defiance, his challenging gauntlet! But the Pecks, in their vainglory, laughed loudly and feared nothing. Two nights later when Donald, who was the first undressed, jumped into bed and thrust his feet down into the depths, he uttered a shriek and sprang headlong out. "What is it?" cried Duncan, turning around in amazement. "Some awful, clammy thing in the bed!" gasped Donald, shivering convulsively. Duncan instantly swept down the covers, and displayed a long, serpent-like, dark thing stretched across the bed. "What is it?" shrieked Donald, dancing on one foot. "An eel!" replied Duncan, calmly. "It's the season for eels. I wonder if I drew one, too." He threw open his own bed. At its foot lay a similar reptile. To the neck of each was attached a ribbon of paper bearing in neatly printed letters the legend: "The First Plague." CHAPTER IX A NEW INTEREST The midweek Seatonian printed a frantic editorial demanding that more fellows come out to try for the relay team. From the tenor of the article one would suppose that some calamity threatened which could only be averted by the timely arrival of a regiment of candidates. The spirit of the exhortation was worthy of Demosthenes. Ignorant that the new member of the staff who was trying his hand at editorials was substituting vehemence for skill after the manner of tyros, Rob was greatly mystified. He understood neither what a relay team was, nor how it could be so shockingly unpatriotic not to come out and try for it. So he asked Strong, the captain of the track team, for information; and Strong, who treated every inquirer as an over-modest candidate, promptly added his name to the list.